3/19/2023 0 Comments Madcap theater westminster![]() ![]() Obsessed by voices: pianist Dylan Perez on recordi.Poetic drama & real musicality: highly imaginative.An afternoon delight: Anna Morrisey's inventive pr.Love in Bloom: for its Pride concert, the Fourth C.A new song festival on the edge of the Cotswolds.Voices of Power: Luke Styles' new oratorio at Thre.Over 4,000 young people to come together to perfor.The Military Wives Choirs is celebrating ten years.An exciting rediscovery: Mercadante's Il proscritt.Premiere of James MacMillan's Mass of St Edward th.Fifth Door Ensemble returns with a double bill of.⚫ Much more than niche repertoire: Tredegar Band's Vaughan Williams on Brass ⚫ Sweet Stillness: Handel's Nine German Arias receive some creative rethinking in these wonderfully engaging performances ⚫ Britten & Bridge's viola: Hélène Clément explores the two composers' shared love of the instrument ⚫ A new benchmark: the first new recording of Tippett's The Midsummer Marriage for over 50 years brings out all the work's intoxicating brilliance ⚫ The Roadside Fire: Ossian Huskinson & Matthew Fletcher in Vaughan Williams and more on Linn Records ![]() ⚫ Highly persuasive: pianist Iyad Sughayer in Aram Khachaturian's Piano Concerto and Concerto-Rhapsody ⚫ From folk-inspired music to contemporary music mixing Carnatic and Western classical: finale concert of Hatfield House Chamber Music Festival ⚫ The Rime of the Ancient Mariner: a glorious pot-pourri of Purcell's music alongside Coleridge's poem read by Rory Kinnear ⚫ Vivacious drama: English Touring Opera's revival of Handel's anti-heroic, satirical Agrippina ⚫ A tremendous achievement: Handel's Tamerlano from English Touring Opera in performance that really drew you into the drama ⚫ Up close and personal with Farinelli: A Queer Georgian Social Season at Burgh House ⚫ Serenade to Music: Nash Ensemble and a fine array of soloists celebrate Vaughan Williams' 150th birthday ⚫ Coleridge-Taylor & Friends: Elizabeth Llewellyn and Simon Lepper at the Oxford Lieder Festival ⚫ Music, merriment and mayhem: a day at the Oxford Lieder Festival ⚫ An evening of story-telling: soprano Masabane Cecilia Rangwanasha & pianist Simon Lepper at Wigmore Hall And at the end of the service we had MacMillan's Toccata which was premiered at Gloucester Cathedral in 2019. Palestrina's glorious Tu es Petrus is a motet that I have sung on many occasions, and always a firm favourite, here it was superbly performed during the administering of communion. ![]() The Sanctus was suitably rhapsodic with some lovely melodies evoking chant and Gaelic psalm singing, whilst the Agnus Dei featured a superb tenor solo. Often, the music was surprisingly thoughtful, but with passages of crunchy harmonies and almost violence, yet it is the quieter moments that stick in the memory, the lovely opening Kyrie and the surprisingly intimate final pages of the Gloria. MacMillan's use of polyphonic textures in the piece referred to a tradition that dates back to the early Tudor period, but the sound-world sometimes also evoked the music of a 20th century figure like Kenneth Leighton (who was MacMillan's teacher), but at the end of the day the music was very much his own with plenty of distinctive finger-prints in the shapes of phrases and the approach. James O'Donnell directed a full-strength Westminster Abbey Choir (16 boys, 12 men), and we heard the Kyrie, Gloria, Sanctus & Benedictus and Agnus Dei. Mass of St Edward the Confessor, commissioned by Thomas and Mia Harding and dedicated to Westminster Abbey Choir School, is written for unaccompanied choir. His Mass of Blessed John Henry Newman (for cantor, congregation, organ with optional brass & timpani) written for Pope Benedict XVI's visit to the UK in 2010. There are at least two congregational settings, but perhaps the best known setting is the wonderful, and complex, Mass (for choir and organ) written for Westminster Cathedral for the Millennium, and equally complex is the Missa Dunelmi (for eight-part choir) written for Durham Cathedral in 2011. James MacMillan's mass is, I think, his seventh setting of the ordinary, the first being a Missa Brevis written when he was just sixteen. I was lucky enough to be seated in the historic Quire so had a perfect sight and sound of a very special service. The music at the service include the world premiere of James MacMillan's Mass of St Edward the Confessor, and Palestrina's Tu es Petrus, with MacMillan's Toccata as the closing voluntary. The preacher was the Very Reverend Dr David Hoyle, Dean of Westminster and James O'Donnell directed Westminster Abbey Choir. St Peter is also the Patron of Westminster Abbey and so there was a rather special sung Eucharist at the Abbey. Yesterday (29 June 2022) was the Feast of St Peter, Apostle and Martyr. ![]()
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